The present invention relates generally to document image processing in a distributed computing environment. More specifically, the present invention relates to optical character recognition and document conversion in a distributed computing environment such as a network environment, and routing processed computer documents to a user by way of a variety of electronic computing devices and/or networks.
Traditionally, businesses have used paper documents to transfer information, store files, and communicate with clients. As technology has increased, many documents originate on a computer, and may be transferred to paper by way of a printer, or may be transferred electronically by way of a computer network. With increased computing power, integration of paper documents with electronic documents has become increasingly common. Currently, documents may be electronically transferred from computer to computer using a network protocol, such as e-mail. Another alternative is to transfer files from one computer to another by printing a document using a first computer and scanning that printed document using a scanning device connected to a second computer. In this manner, the second computer electronically stores an image of the scanned document.
In order to aid the translation of paper documents into electronic documents, document processing programs such as Optical Character Recognition (OCR) programs have been introduced to process documents by recognizing typeface characters within a scanned document image. This procedure is known as textual processing, which deals with the text components of a document image. Textual processing typically determines the skew, or tilt at which the document may have been scanned into the computer and finds columns, paragraphs, text lines, and words. Graphics processing, on the other hand, deals with graphics of a document image, or non-textual components determining line size, thickness, and direction, and the existence of corners and curves.
The conversion of a paper document into an electronic format, such as a word processing document, involves both hardware and software components. The hardware component, such as a scanner, determines the image of the document, and stores this image in electronic form, such as a bitmap. The software component analyzes patterns within the electronic image to recognize the content of the image, e.g., characters of text, lines, etc. In many instances, a person who desires to convert a paper document into an electronic format may not have access to one or both of these components. For instance, a person who is traveling may not have a scanner and OCR software available at a hotel. Similarly, for space and/or budgeting reasons, it may not be feasible to procure a scanner for home or small office use. In another example, a person may need access to a special type of OCR software, such as one which recognizes handwriting, or text in a foreign language. It is desirable, therefore, to provide a mechanism for converting documents into a desired electronic format in those situations where the required hardware and/or software components are not available to the user.
It is becoming increasingly common to distribute computing applications over a network, especially over the Internet. This is desirable due to the increasing cost of applications, and the speed with which newer versions of software applications are released. By maintaining applications at a location remote from a user, a user is not responsible for updating and maintaining current the software applications to be used. Also, as computers are improved and become rapidly outdated, it is desirable to maintain computer application files at a central location, thereby preventing the user from needing to reload all of the software applications which he or she uses upon purchasing a new computer. Additionally, distributed computing provides a user with an increased ease of installation as there is less software to install at the user""s end, and software that is installed on a user""s computer is generally smaller, requiring less memory space. Distributed computing also allows for a reduced cost to each user while providing more computational power for the software applications.
With the increasing availability and use of centralized computing applications, distributed computing document recognition and processing computer applications offer a solution to the needs described previously. In this regard, centralized fax services have been created which permit anyone to send a facsimile to a user, by means of a phone number assigned to that user, and routes the facsimile to the user, for instance via e-mail. Examples of such services include eFax, Kofax, and ThruFax. While these services provide basic, unilateral document processing, do not allow for a user to participate in a two-way exchange of documents, and provide only a limited number of possibilities for the submission and retrieval of documents. For example, eFax allows for incoming faxes to be processed using OCR processing, but does not allow for customization such as users settings and preferences, or specific routing, as routing is handled by direct inward dialing, where an individual must know the number to which he or she desires a transmission to be routed. Kofax provides a general distributed capture application for submitting documents to a central server, which may include certain document processing functions. However, the document submission in the Kofax application is limited to uni-directional data transfer. ThruFax provides a general fax server with limited routing technology.
Accordingly, it is desirable to create a system and method that allow a user to submit documents using a variety of interfaces to a remotely located computer application, with which will process the document and return a converted product to a user via a variety of different methods over a computer network. In so doing, it is also desirable to provide a computer user with a variety of convenient, familiar methods by which he or she may interface with the remotely located computer application. It is also desirable to determine a user""s preferences for processing the document and use these preferences as guidelines when processing the documents. Additionally, it is desirable to provide for a method of authentication, whereby a user""s identification may be verified and a method of transmitting a processed document to a user may be determined.
In accordance with the present invention, these objectives are achieved by a system and method that provides a user with access to a distributed computing document recognition and processing applications over a network. This system and method allow a user to employ the functionality of a remotely located application for document processing by submitting a document using a variety of sources and receiving a processed document product by a variety of different techniques. Also in accordance with the present invention, the system and method of the present invention allow for authentication of a user and document processing according to a user""s predetermined preferences.